Amiga Shopper - Issue 71 (1997-01)(Future Publishing)(GB)[subscribers newsletter]

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Amiga Shopper offers

This month we give you the chance to get the best of both worlds. Blast your

way through ZEEWOLF 2 or take it easy and learn more about your Amiga with

Amiga Shopper books at exclusive subscriber prices.

This is absolutely definitiy your last chance to get hold of some top Amiga books at

crazy prices - once our stock is gone, there will be no more! Get your skates on and

order your copy right now on ™ 01225 82251 1.

Due to limited stock availablity - telephone orders only please.

ZEEWOLF 2

Helicopters,
guns, tanks and 32
staggeringly playable missions.
Action fans and anyone who likes to think
on their feet will lap up this gem of a game.
All this for the killer Amiga Shopper
subscriber price of £14.99

Amiga Shopper PD Directory

SAVE EVEN MORE MONEY if you buy a

copy of the Amiga Shopper PD Directory at
the same time as the ARexx book. It's
packed with 500+ pages of PD/shareware
reviews, advice
and information -
and it's yours for
an extra £3 when
you order with
the Arexx book.

Previously
sold for
£14.99.

Order code

ARexx: Your Amiga's

Built-in Turbocharger

WAS £17,95 NOW £5.95

If you have a Workbench 2 or 3 Amiga, you
already have ARexx. Now all you need to
know is how to use it . . .

This book contains everything that you need

to know to get the most out of Arexx: "Your

Amiga's built-in Turbocharger".

It includes help for beginners and

authoritive reference material for

experienced users.

You can learn how to

write your own

applications and

utilities, exploit some

of your Amiga's little

known features and

produce time-saving

'macros' for top

applications.

Alga's Buitu
"charger

Order code

Offer Price

FLB 5092

£5.95

There's detailed coverage of:

• running ARexx

• Basic programming

• Function libraries

• Full ARexx reference

• Debugging

• ARexx 'ports'

• Controlling programs

• Automating tasks

Discover the

potential of one

of your Amiga's

best- kept secrets

with this book!

STOCKS ARE STRICTLY LIMITED -
ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!

? Call our credit card Order Hotline ^ 01225 822511

'ij£:^ Bern ember to quote your subscriber number when you order-, -V

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The essential magazine for Amiga enthusiasts

Subscription Letter

Issue 71 January 1996

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Dear Subscriber

Well, this is my final Subs letter and the end of an era. I had not
wanted to be the last person to sit Amiga Shopper's Editor's chair,
but have stayed to the end working late into the night with the likes of
Andrea Ball who has done an amazing job keeping AS together. For
both of us the duties on Amiga Shopper have been in addition to our
normal jobs - she as the Production Editor on Amiga Format and myself as the CD-
ROM Editor on PC Plus - and the work has meant many missed social events. But is
has been worth it and the reward of reading many letters from supporters, who have
appreciated Future's efforts to keep the market alive as long as possible, has been
gratifying. Thanks also to Nick Aspell for always being ready to help out when
everything was turning into a complete nightmare.

It hasn't been easy seeing AS reduced in size, but we've always managed to offer a
magazine that few with double the page count can provide. We've tried to ensure
that the magazine has remained tightly focused and while we haven't ignored outside
events, we've recognised that you don't really want to read about the latest Pentium
developments or techno gadgets for the home. This month we could have done a
retrospective of ail the years of AS, but instead we decided to keep the mourning to
a minimum as we had so much more interesting items to cover.
Now though the market has shrunk further and we cannot compete with even our
sister magazine, Amiga Format, which now has a CD-ROM every month. Although we
are going you can rest assured that the Amiga stills has a true friend in her. So with
much sadness, and a final thanks for your loyalty, all I can say is "See you in the
pages of Amiga Format." Keep the faith.

David Taylor
Deputy Editor

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See back page for special offers

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Subscribers

On fft/s //na/ Subscribers' disk David Taylor introduces four of
the best new Shareware products.

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Over the years the Subscribers'
disks have been packed with as
many of the best programs we've been
able to find. Many of you have every
single one and often say how
invaluable you have found them.
Coverdisks have always been one of
the best sources of software, both as a
means of trying out commercial
products and evaluating Shareware as
well as getting some true gems, which
you could never live without, for free.
I've always been as much interested in
the disks of a magazine as in the
magazine itself - even before I began
to compile them for magazines myself.
Since doing the AS disks 1 have always
tried to include the right balance of utilities
so that there was something for all tastes.
Judging my your comments I have mostly
achieved this and so I've done the same on
this final disk. There's a program to expand
your DTP capabilities, an emulator, a music
program and a utility. Remember that in the
future you will still be able to get quality
software from Aminet and from the disks, or
better, CD-ROM of Amiga Format.

Shape Shifter 3.6

I put a lot of thought into whether to include
this new release of the Mac emulator or
whether to break convention and include the
PC's Amiga emulator UAE instead, as we
know many of you already have PCs. In the

end, I decided that as ShapeShifter is such
an important Amiga program I'd include it
here and for the PC owners among you, you
will be able to find versions of the latest
release of UAE on the next available CD-
ROM of PC Plus, probably the February
1 997 issue (out af the beginning of the new
year).

ShapeShifter allows you to emulate an
Apple Mac on your Amiga and run Mac
software. To use it you need an Apple
Macintosh from which you can save out the
ROMs as a file. The program then uses
these ROMs to allow the Amiga to emulate
the Mac. Why bother? Well, you can get the
ROM files froma cheap second hand
machine and then use it on a high end
Amiga to outperform the original. This clone
can actually run very fast because the Macs
are based around the same processor as
the Amiga so it doesn't have to interpret
that.

When the ROMs are installed in the
same directory as the program you can
insert the Prepareemul command in your
startup-sequence so that the Amiga's
memory is set up for use with the Mac (this
doesn't affect the Amiga using it when you

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don't use ShapeShifter). You can then start
the program and create a simulated hard
drive or mount a proper one (if you are a
registered user). When the emulator then
boots you can install the operating system
software and you have a fully operational
Mac to install software on and use.

Version 3.6 is
Shareware and
registering costs
$40 (about £30),
but gives you
access to hard
drive partitions
and SCSI
devices. New in
this release are
support for sound
cards, QuickDraw

3

to

The Amiga starts its fight

back here with the

grassroots campaign

instigated by Eric Schwartz.

acceleration, improvements to the serial
driver and more together with bug fixes,

MathScript

One things that we've had a few letters
about is the lack of proper support for
maths programs, both in Amiga Shopper
and on the Amiga in general. This program
goes some way to rectifying this by allowing
you to create mathematical equations using
all the configurable maths signs. All you
need to do is type them in, adjusting the
figures to the correct power, etc and you
can then save the resulting equation out as
a formula or export it as an IFF, TIFF or EPS
for importing into a DTP program. No Amiga
DTP package has adequate high end
mathematical support and this feature
should allow you to circumvent the problem.

Note that this program is Shareware
and uses MUI.

Musiker

This is a very unusual program. It takes a set
of samples and instruments, chosen either
by yourself or at random (and there are a set
of samples included so you just need to set
the list it can choose from) and creates a
music module from them. It works almost
completely at random, although some of the
harmonics are taken from a predefined
database. Not surprisingly some of the
tunes it creates are terrible, but some are
actually quite catchy. The author does hope
that Aminet and BBSs don't become

flooded with poor tracker modules, because
that isn't the point, but if you need a song in
a hurry or need a piece of music to test
something out then Musiker is a real boon. If
you get a module you like, you can save it
out for use in your work. The interface
requires MUI.

Guideance

This utility is a replacement for the
amigaguide command and allows you to
load in powerpacked or xpk packed
amigaguide files. All you need to do is set
the default tool of the guide's icon to
Guideance and it will load up any guide file.
Obviously it means you need the
amigaguide.library but it does expand the
use of amigeguides.

That's it then. Another fine Amiga
tradition draws to a close. The quality of
some of the Shareware programs and their
ease of use has convinced me that the
demise of the Amiga is a loss beyond
compare. To be resurrected fully is going to
take a great deal of money and effort, but
that is no reason for existing Amiga owners
to leave their machines. If a computer does
what you need then why change? The only
reason for spending thousands of pounds
on a new machine is if you need one. Rest
assured that we shall still be around
supporting you users through Amiga Format
for as long as enough of you want us. This
may be the end of Amiga Shopper, but it
doesn't need to be the end of years of
happy Amiga computing. There's still plenty
install for al of us. I hope you've found
something on our disks that have made it all
worthwhile and if so, don't forget to drop
the program's authors a line to thank them.
Only through your support will more
programs be released. Take care.

Installation

To install your Subscribers disk, you can boot it;
but you'll have to have your main Coverdisks at
hand because the Subscriber's disk needs a
few files from them. If you have a hard drive,
you can install everything from the three disks
by loading Workbench and using the script on
the first Coverdisk. Remember that after
installing the disks, you may still need to install
individual programs from their drawers.

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